Ecodesign sits at the heart of Europe’s push to drive up product efficiency and at the heart of the directive is a formula. the Least Life Cycle Cost formula compares the costs of improving a product with the cash savings delivered by those savings over the lifetime of a product in order to ensure that the former does not outweigh the latter.

This report shows that the formula is overly conservative and dramatically cutting short the savings potential of the directive. The results are long-lasting policies that are out of date the moment they enter into force. Correcting such a value stands to double the savings achieved through Ecodesign. With legislative revision due in 2014, Europe has the chance to tune the ecodesign motor. This report outlines some policy options in hand.